


The noise of the costumed crowd

by keeptheearthbelow



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Gen, Halloween
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-31
Updated: 2015-10-31
Packaged: 2018-04-29 06:26:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5118524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keeptheearthbelow/pseuds/keeptheearthbelow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Katniss is trick-or-treating with her dad and baby sister until, on Peeta’s family’s doorstep, a mask slips and a monster is revealed. Warnings: child abuse, racism.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The noise of the costumed crowd

Mama is sick with the blues, but Dad says they can go trick-or-treating anyway and let Mama rest. Katniss dresses herself in her costume. She has a bright blue dress and her Nerf bow and arrow, the one her parents saved up for so long to get that she will treasure it forever. Her hair is black instead of red like Merida’s, but she puffs it up into a cloud the way Mama showed her when they planned her costume, and she thinks it’s pretty good. Meanwhile Dad dresses baby Primrose in her green onesie and put a hat that looks like a big flower on her, so that she’s in costume too.

They drive into town and park the truck near school. Katniss carries the plastic jack-o-lantern bucket to put candy in, and Dad puts the baby in the carrier on his chest. Katniss sees him dust off his jeans some and make sure his shirt is tucked in, and she wonders if he wishes he’d worn a costume too.

She keeps an eye out as they go up and down the streets. She sees some kids from kindergarten, but not who she’s looking for, not yet. There are so many people out trick-or-treating, more than could possibly live in these big houses. Her family must not be the only one visiting the neighborhood. In between houses, she and Dad take turns pointing out to each other the most amazing decorations they see — cobwebs and ghosts hung from the big old trees, and cauldrons and mummies on the porches of the big brick houses, and scary music playing in the gardens.

They are coming up the steps onto a porch that has lots of beautiful many-colored pumpkins decorating it when Katniss can hear a lady shouting inside the house.

“Of course I am. I had no idea people would come here to mooch.” There’s a pause like she’s on the phone. The light over the door goes out suddenly. “Well if they want to be in a good neighborhood they should clean up their act and save up and move to one! We didn’t buy this house so we could give handouts!”

Dad tugs her hand gently. “Come on, sweetie. Looks like we should skip this house.”

But then the front door opens, and Katniss exclaims, “Peeta!”

Peeta is in kindergarten with her. They were assigned to be partners the first day and they have been friends ever since. He draws pictures for her and she shows him how to climb trees after school. His Halloween costume is a baker, with white clothes and a dot of flour on his nose and a big paper hat. He showed her the hat today at school and explained that his mom made it by hand.

He is holding out a piece of candy for her, so she comes up and says, “Trick-or-treat!”

“I’m already giving you candy, silly,” he says.

“No, you’re supposed to say Happy Halloween.”

He looks behind her and says, “Is that your baby sister?”

“Yep.”

“I’ll get candy for her too, ‘cause the youngest shouldn’t get left out,” he says, and goes back in. The screen door shuts between them. He reaches into a bowl on a table just inside and pulls out another little candy bar.

Suddenly a lady appears and grabs his hand. “Sneaking candy? Really, Peeta?” She has a phone in her other hand and fancy hair and clothes. By her voice, this is the lady who was shouting about handouts. “Put it back.”

“It’s for —” He whispers, looking toward the door.

The lady looks up, and Katniss takes a step back. “We’re done with trick-or-treaters for this evening,” she says coldly.

Dad comes up and puts his hand on Katniss’s hair. “Sorry about that, we’d just come to your door when the light went out. My name’s Jim Everdeen, and my older daughter here is Katniss. I think our kids are in kindergarten together.”

“Is that so,” Peeta’s mom replies.

Below them, Katniss and Peeta smile at each other through the screen. Katniss says, “How come you aren’t out trick-or-treating too?”

Peeta opens his mouth, but his mom speaks first. “Peeta doesn’t need extra candy. Not on top of his baby fat.”

Katniss can feel Dad’s surprise through his touch on her head. “I — well. If he’d like to just walk around and see the sights, it’d be no trouble if he comes with us.”

Peeta’s mom snorts. “I don’t know you, and if I wanted him to go out, I’d have sent him out with his brothers.”

Katniss looks up to find the grown-ups staring at each other. She looks back at Peeta, but he’s looking at the floor. His face is pink beneath the carefully applied flour.

Dad pats the top of her head. “Sweetie, you and Peeta can visit tomorrow at school. Let’s see if any of the neighbors are still doing candy.”

“You have a lot of nerve,” Peeta’s mom says. Katniss can tell her dad is angry. But before they turn away, Peeta pushes the door open and holds out the candy for Primrose.

Peeta’s mom gasps and smacks him on the head. Everybody gasps.

“I told you to put that back!” Peeta’s mom hisses. She shakes him hard by the shoulders.

“Jesus,” Katniss’s dad exclaims.

Peeta has hunched up his whole body and dropped the candy on the porch. Katniss finds her voice and says, “Hitting isn’t nice!”

Peeta’s mom looks up. “You people, all of you, get away from my house.”

Katniss glances over her shoulder. Other trick-or-treaters came up on the porch behind them and everybody is staring.

“Peeta, go to your room.”

“Ma'am, listen, I know parenting can be tough at times, but —”

Dad is using his patient voice, but Peeta’s mom interrupts. “Somebody like _you_ is going to lecture somebody like _me_ about parenting? Peeta, do as I say.”

But he’s stock-still and hunched up, and she smacks his face. He cries out, and scampers out of sight. Katniss stares for a second and then pulls the door open and darts after him. She hears her dad shout her name, and she feels Peeta’s mom swipe at her, fingers catching briefly in her hair. But she runs after Peeta into the strange house.

It’s all shouting — Peeta telling her to go away, Katniss trying to say something from kindergarten about you should tell if somebody hits you, her dad back there yelling her name and saying something to the lady, and Peeta’s mom screaming at them to get out of her house. Katniss reaches Peeta and throws her arms around him, and all the hands land on them and Dad swings them into the air and hurries back to the door.

Peeta’s mom is whacking at them with one hand and jabbing at her phone with the other. “I’m calling 911! Get out of my house! Put down my son! Yes, hello, this man has invaded my home and is carrying away my son!”

There is so much noise on the porch. She and Peeta are smooshed together with Primrose on her dad’s chest and Primrose has started crying. She can hear people yelling that her dad is a thug and completely out of line and she can hear people yelling about hitting children. Everything becomes a buzzing in Katniss’s ears. Her dad tries to set them down in the yard, but he won’t let go of Katniss and Katniss won’t let go of Peeta. Peeta’s mom hits Katniss to make her let go, but Peeta clings to her. Peeta’s mom grabs his arm and pulls and Katniss hears her friend’s shoulder pop. Peeta screams.

More hollering, more hands. Katniss shuts her eyes and hangs on. They’re moving again. Her dad sets them down, half on concrete and half on grass. “I’m off your property,” he’s yelling. “This is the sidewalk. I haven’t taken your kid anywhere. Jesus!”

She isn’t used to this much shouting. All Katniss can really pick out is Peeta’s sobs against her shoulder, and her baby sister’s thin wails above her, and her dad apparently in some kind of conversation full of shouting. “Oh, you called the police? Good! Let ‘em hear you smack your kid around! I’ll tell 'em! I’ll let 'em know you smacked my kid! This is unbelievable! She did, she hit my kid, when all she did was run in after her friend!”

“I’ll have you arrested for home invasion! For kidnapping! You people, you think you can come into the good neighborhoods!”

“You should stay in your own neighborhood. Everybody should.”

“We live on a country road, people, I just want to take my girls trick-or-treating!”

“Jim, you really could be arrested.” This is much quieter. “Can Ingrid come pick up the girls?”

After a pause, her dad says, “Unfortunately not.”

In the distance, Katniss can hear sirens wailing.

She wonders where her jack-o-lantern bucket with her candy is. It’s the only trick-or-treating bucket her family has. She wonders where Peeta’s baker hat went, and whether his arm will be okay. He still has his other arm around her and the shoulder of her dress is all wet.

She sees Peeta’s mom reach down toward them again, but a couple people reach for her hands and say, “Mary, maybe just wait for a minute.” And Dad doesn’t move from where he stands over them.

It’s bad when the sirens arrive. People wearing uniforms make them all let go. Peeta is put on a cot in the back of an ambulance. Dad has to sit in the back of a police car with handcuffs on. They leave Primrose whimpering in the carrier on his chest because there’s nowhere else to put her. Katniss gets told to sit on the curb next to the police car, but after one shivering minute she climbs into the backseat with them. Dad groans her name, but he doesn’t tell her to get out. Her heart is thumping fast, and there are too many people out there, in crazy costumes, staring and muttering.

Katniss watches over Dad’s arm as people with gloves on look at Peeta’s shoulder. They wipe his nose and keep asking him questions that she can’t hear for the distance and her heartbeat in her ears. Then they take off his baker apron and shirt and look at him some more. They look at each other, and pull the police officers away from where they were nodding and writing down everything Peeta’s mom was saying. The police officers go look at Peeta too. Katniss can hardly see him anymore with so many people around him.

Another police car arrives. They make Peeta’s mom sit in the back of that one. The noise of the costumed crowd rises like the wind.

↔

It’s a long, awful, lonely time before they see each other in school again. But when they do, Peeta runs to Katniss and hugs her with two good arms, and she hugs him back and promises to never let go.


End file.
